Black Twitter Recommends Books For Readers Who Don't Want 'Black Harry Potter'

By Brian Richards | Social Media | August 2, 2024 |

By Brian Richards | Social Media | August 2, 2024 |

There was a time when Harry Potter fans everywhere were happy and proud to be Harry Potter fans, and Joanne K. Rowling was seen by those fans as a brilliant wordsmith who created a world that brought joy and comfort to readers of all ages. I wasn’t the most die-hard Harry Potter fan, but I was a fan. I borrowed every book from the library to read, and stood in line for hours with one of my closest friends at our local Barnes & Noble so she could purchase her copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Even now, I still get chills sometimes when I think of Molly Weasley screaming “Not my daughter, you bitch!” at Bellatrix Lestrange before the two of them clashed wands in battle.

But now, there are too many reasons why the Harry Potter series, despite its groundbreaking impact, hasn’t aged well, and why most people have now gone from adoring Joanne K. Rowling, to refusing to even piss on her if she were on fire. (It’s also why some eagle-eyed people on social media have wondered about what is possibly black mold on the walls of her residence in the background of her Twitter profile photo, which has resulted in many a “Damn, bitch, you live like this?!” joke.) Ever since the Harry Potter author began using her Twitter page to remind us over and over and over and over again that she cares more about being cruel towards trans women than she does about shutting the f-ck up, counting her millions, and writing more books for people to enjoy, Harry Potter fans who would proudly boast about which Hogwarts house they would be placed into have chosen to leave the fandom and the series behind for good, and focus on other stories told by other writers whose behavior isn’t nearly as hateful and infuriating as Rowling’s. (Of course, there are still fans who remain fiercely committed to supporting all things Harry Potter, no matter what Rowling says or does, hence why Kayleigh has written articles to remind these same fans to stop f-cking supporting her transphobia by giving her their money.)

Black writers who grew up reading and loving Harry Potter have expressed their hope to follow in Rowling’s footsteps, and create their own fantasy universes with diverse casts of characters practicing magic in Hogwarts-like institutions where they can master their skills. But some fans, who would love to see more diverse fantasy stories available in bookstores, have also expressed how tired they are of Black writers wanting to be the next Joanne K. Rowling, and creating a Black version of Harry Potter. They have pointed out that many other stories deserve to be told that involve magic and the supernatural, and that some of the novels being published that were meant to be the Black version of Harry Potter? They haven’t been all that memorable or great.

I want Black creatives to let go of the “Black Harry Potter” vision and move onto something better and new.

— Super Robot Enby Team Hyperforce Go! 🇵🇸🇨🇩 (@BeBraesFull) July 24, 2024

It was this tweet that inspired many writers on Twitter to recommend their books to readers looking for fantasy and supernatural stories that focused on Black and brown characters, and to remind each other that there are better goals to strive for as an artist than trying to be the next Joanne K. Rowling.

Kamilah Cole described Faron Vincent, the main character in her book, So Let Them Burn, as a “Jamaican Joan of Arc.” The novel, according to Cole’s website, is “…a Jamaican-inspired Young Adult fantasy about a gods-blessed heroine who is forced to choose between saving her sister, or protecting her homeland.” (The sequel to So Let Them Burn, which is titled This Ends in Embers, is expected to be published next year.)

Faron Vincent can channel the power of the gods. Five years ago, she used her divine magic to liberate her island from its enemies, the dragon-riding Langley Empire. But now, at seventeen, Faron is all powered up with no wars to fight. She’s a legend to her people and a nuisance to her neighbors. When she’s forced to attend an international peace summit, Faron expects that she will perform tricks like a trained pet and then go home. She doesn’t expect her older sister, Elara, forming an unprecedented bond with an enemy dragon—or the gods claiming the only way to break that bond is to kill her sister. As Faron’s desperation to find another solution takes her down a dark path, and Elara discovers the shocking secrets at the heart of the Langley Empire, both must make difficult choices that will shape each other’s lives, as well as the fate of their world.

Hayley Dennings tweeted about her upcoming novel, This Ravenous Fate, which she described as “…Black lesbian vampires with reimagined lore based on Black history and set during the Harlem Renaissance.”

It’s 1926 and reapers, the once-human vampires with a terrifying affliction, are on the rise in New York. But the Saint family’s thriving reaper-hunting enterprise holds reign over the city, giving them more power than even the organized criminals who run the nightclubs. Eighteen-year-old Elise Saint, home after five years in Paris, is the reluctant heir to the empire. Only one thing weighs heavier on Elise’s mind than her family obligations: the knowledge that the Harlem reapers want her dead. Layla Quinn is a young reaper haunted by her past. Though reapers have existed in America for three centuries, created by New World atrocities and cruel experiments, Layla became one just five years ago. The night she was turned, she lost her parents, the protection of the Saints, and her humanity, and she’ll never forget how Elise Saint betrayed her.

But some reapers are inexplicably turning part human again, leaving a wake of mysterious and brutal killings. When Layla is framed for one of these attacks, the Saint patriarch offers her a deal she can’t refuse: to work with Elise to investigate how these murders might be linked to shocking rumors of a reaper cure. Once close friends, now bitter enemies, Elise and Layla explore the city’s underworld, confronting their intense feelings for one another and uncovering the sinister truths about a growing threat to reapers and humans alike.

O.O. Sangoyomi wrote her debut novel, Masquerade, set in a reimagined version of 15th-century West Africa, and is about “…a Yorùbá woman viciously climbing the ranks of power in a Medieval West African warrior society,” according to Sangoyomi’s description on Twitter.

Òdòdó’s hometown of Timbuktu has been conquered by the warrior king of Yorùbáland, and living conditions for the women in her blacksmith guild, who were already shunned as social pariahs, grow even worse. Then Òdòdó is abducted. She is whisked across the Sahara to the capital city of Ṣàngótẹ̀, where she is shocked to discover that her kidnapper is none other than the vagrant who had visited her guild just days prior. But now that he is swathed in riches rather than rags, Òdòdó realizes he is not a vagrant at all; he is the warrior king, and he has chosen her to be his wife.

In a sudden change of fortune, Òdòdó soars to the very heights of society. But after a lifetime of subjugation, she finds the power that saturates this world of battle and political savvy too enticing to resist. As tensions with rival states grow, revealing elaborate schemes and enemies hidden in plain sight, Òdòdó must defy the cruel king she has been forced to wed by reforging the shaky loyalties of the court in her favor, or risk losing everything—including her life.

Children of Blood and Bone, the first novel in Tomi Adeyemi’s Legacy of Orisha trilogy, was published back in 2018, and went on to become a New York Times bestseller.

Zélie Adebola remembers when the soil of Orïsha hummed with magic. Burners ignited flames, Tiders beckoned waves, and Zélie’s Reaper mother summoned forth souls. But everything changed the night magic disappeared. Under the orders of a ruthless king, maji were killed, leaving Zélie without a mother and her people without hope.

Now Zélie has one chance to bring back magic and strike against the monarchy. With the help of a rogue princess, Zélie must outwit and outrun the crown prince, who is hell-bent on eradicating magic for good. Danger lurks in Orïsha, where snow leoponaires prowl and vengeful spirits wait in the waters. Yet the greatest danger may be Zélie herself as she struggles to control her powers and her growing feelings for an enemy.

For readers who are fans of legendary sci-fi author William Gibson, Jill Tew recommended her upcoming novel, The Dividing Sky.

In 2460, eighteen-year-old Liv Newman dreams of a future beyond her lower-class life in the Metro. As a Proxy, she uses the neurochip in her brain to sell memories to wealthy clients. Maybe a few illegally, but money equals freedom. So when a customer offers her a ludicrous sum to go on an assignment in no-man’s-land, Liv accepts. Now she just has to survive. Rookie Forceman Adrian Rao believes in order over all. After discovering that a renegade Proxy’s shady dealings are messing with citizens’ brain chemistry, he vows to extinguish the threat. But when he tracks Liv down, there’s one problem: her memories are gone. Can Adrian bring himself to condemn her for crimes she doesn’t remember?

As Liv and Adrian navigate the world beyond the Metro and their growing feelings for one another, they grapple with who they are, who they could be, and whether another way of living is possible.

Jamison Shea wrote a duology that she describes as Black Swan meets Venom. The first novel is called I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me, which will be published later this month. (The second book, I Am the Dark That Answers When You Call, hits shelves in November.)

Laure Mesny is a perfectionist with an axe to grind. Despite being constantly overlooked in the elite and cutthroat world of the Parisian ballet, she will do anything to prove that a Black girl can take center stage. To level the playing field, Laure ventures deep into the depths of the Catacombs and strikes a deal with a pulsating river of blood. The primordial power Laure gains promises influence and adoration, everything she’s dreamed of and worked toward. With retribution on her mind, she surpasses her bitter and privileged peers, leaving broken bodies behind her on her climb to stardom.

But even as undeniable as she is, Laure is not the only monster around. And her vicious desires make her a perfect target for slaughter. As she descends into madness and the mystifying underworld beneath her, she is faced with the ultimate choice: continue to break herself for scraps of validation or succumb to the darkness that wants her exactly as she is—monstrous heart and all. That is, if the god-killer doesn’t catch her first.

Sarah Raughley’s The Bones of Ruin trilogy is set in an alternate London in the 1880s, and has been described as a 19th-century version of X-Men.

As an African tightrope dancer in Victorian London, Iris is used to being strange. She is certainly an unusual sight for leering British audiences always eager for the spectacle of colonial curiosity. But Iris also has a secret that even “strange” doesn’t capture: She cannot die.

Haunted by her unnatural power and with no memories of her past, Iris is obsessed with discovering who she is. But that mission gets more complicated when she meets the dark and alluring Adam Temple, a member of a mysterious order called the Enlightenment Committee. Adam seems to know much more about her than he lets on, and he shares with her a terrifying revelation: the world is ending, and the Committee will decide who lives…and who doesn’t. To help them choose a leader for the upcoming apocalypse, the Committee is holding the Tournament of Freaks, a macabre competition made up of vicious fighters with fantastical abilities. Adam wants Iris to be his champion, and in return, he promises her the one thing she wants most: the truth about who she really is. If Iris wants to learn about her shadowy past, she has no choice but to fight. But the further she gets in the grisly tournament, the more she begins to remember—and the more she wonders if the truth is something best left forgotten.

Brittany N. Williams made her debut in the world of Young Adult fantasy with That Self-Same Metal, the first volume in her Forge & Fracture Saga.

Sixteen-year-old Joan Sands is a gifted craftswoman who creates and upkeeps the stage blades for William Shakespeare’s acting company, The King’s Men. Joan’s skill with her blades comes from a magical ability to control metal—an ability gifted by her Head Orisha, Ogun. Because her whole family is Orisha-blessed, the Sands family have always kept tabs on the Fae presence in London. Usually, that doesn’t involve much except noting the faint glow around a Fae’s body as they try to blend in with London society, but lately, there has been an uptick in brutal Fae attacks. After Joan wounds a powerful Fae and saves the son of a cruel lord, she is drawn into political intrigue in the human and Fae worlds.

(FYI: Brittany is married to author Daniel José Older, who has left his own mark in Young Adult fiction and fantasy with his Shadowshaper Cypher series, the Bone Street Rumba novels, and is now writing novels set in the Star Wars universe.)

There were many other books recommended in response to that tweet: The Boy to Beat the Gods by Ashley Thorpe; Legendborn by Tracy Deonn; The Gifted Society by Tatiana White; The Poisons We Drink by Bethany Baptiste; Blood Debts by Terry J. Benton-Walker; The Blood Trials by N.E. Davenport; The Principle of Moments by Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson; The Erlonan Tales series by D.L. Jordan; The Marvellers by Dhonielle Clayton; Amari and the Night Brothers by B.B. Alston; Blood, Flesh, and Magic by Viano Oniomoh; The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna; and Skin of the Sea by Natasha Bowen. And those are only just some of the recommendations.

If you’ve come this far, and you’re wondering, “Wait a damn minute! Why didn’t you mention Blood at the Root by LaDarrion Williams?” Well…probably because the original tweet that inspired all of these people to share their recommendations is because Blood at the Root came with rather high expectations before its release (especially with Williams himself describing his novel as a YA fantasy story with a lead who is a Black boy, and a story that contains no racial trauma or police brutality), only for several people in Black Twitter to end up going, “What the f-ck is this?” upon reading it themselves, not liking the novel as much as they thought they would, and calling bullsh-t on Williams’ original claim that the book contained no racial trauma even though it is present in the novel, along with misogynoir and homophobia. So hopefully, that answers your question, though if you want to read Blood at the Root anyway, it’s not like I’m in any position to stop you from doing so.

For those who have long outgrown the need to stan for all things Harry Potter, and who have no interest whatsoever in the upcoming reboot of the series on HBO Max, especially when The Books of Magic (a DC/Vertigo comic book series which is also about a young boy in training to become a powerful magician, and was first published in 1990) has long been available in bookstores for everyone’s reading pleasure? (Even though unfortunately, that series was co-created and partially written by another revered British author whose recent actions have revealed them to be a massive f-cking disappointment.) There are plenty of stories to choose from, with characters from underrepresented communities who are not always written as the main characters in such stories, and are often only written to be the Black Best Friend to white characters who get to do all of the exciting and interesting stuff for readers to obsess over. The best part about this is that the majority of these novels are written by Black women, and they are far more deserving of support than a transphobic scat-muncher who uses her wealth and popularity as a shield against anyone who speaks out against the seemingly never-ending hate that comes from her fingertips.